What is Equine Assisted Learning?

To put it simply, Equine Assisted Learning is a learner based educational, experiential experience with horses. More specifically, Equine Assisted Learning is a horse course with an effective approach to human development that encourages individual and team growth. Participants engage in objectively driven exercises and find themselves learning valuable life skills in a fun and exciting atmosphere. Equine Assisted Learning has proven to be useful, powerful, positive, educational, and creative. The Academy of Equine Assisted Learning’s program emphasizes it’s BuildingBlock™ curriculum of facilitating life skills through positively reinforced interaction with horses. The horse's jobs are speaking to the clients through their bodies to help bring about the changes that the clients need to make. Exercises are developed to encourage self-confidence through validated, hands-on experiences. Equine Assisted Learning through the Equine Connection is NOT equine therapy. We do not require a clinical professional with us to do these exercises and programs given to you in your horse course. Equine Assisted Learning works, because the teachers are the horses!

The people build skills while listening to what the horses tell them they need to say or do to move forward, not only in the program, but in their lives. The people solve their problems because they have the answers inside - they just need help from the horse to find those solutions.

Our horse course is not a bandage effect for humans; it's life changing with proven results with a 5-year research study with the University of Calgary, Saskatoon and Regina.

Albert Wight studied methods of education extensively and concluded a need for change from the traditional classroom and lecture format to an educational alternative called "participative method", which focuses on the experiential process of learning rather than the mere transmission of information. Experiential learning has recently been termed "the natural way of learning" and defined as the process by which the experience of the learner is reflected upon, from which new insights emerge.

We can help you to achieve your goal in this horse program, and we show you all the steps you need to succeed in this horse field versus just getting a certification and not knowing what to do with it after.

People ask us all the time why and how we are different, when there are seemingly so many similarities between equine assisted learning certified businesses. We are not linked with any other company or organization in the world. The major difference would be that between July 2013-June 2014, Kari Fulmek was the only Certified Master Instructor due to unforeseen circumstances. She had to decide at that time to either go forward with helping others do what she does, or not be an instructor at all. She decided that she couldn't deprive the world of this amazing course.

Before Kari, this was a 4-day certification course and she added on the one more day to incorporate the business side of this equine assisted field. The reason for adding this day was because of all the struggles, losses, obstacles, challenges, debt to almost $300,000 (which incorporated a lot of ineffective spending that YOU would never have to spend! Kari’s always been an entrepreneur so she didn't think that this particular business would be hard to sell to organizations and clients but was she wrong!) and in between Jan 2009 - 2012 there was pure confusion in getting her business going! And that was the main reason that as a certified facilitator with clients, the organizations whom she was able to help could not understand what it was she was selling to them. She had no additional help from where she was certified on how to market this program, especially since all she heard was ‘everybody’ wants this, and yet, no one was signing up to take these incredible experiential learning programs with objectives. Most people would quit under all of those pressures and failures, but Kari didn't. That was why she knew that as an instructor it was her job to make it easier and more obtainable for all of the people that she trained.

We hired outside help to figure out how to make this business move forward and make a living at it. Spending over $40,000 on outside help created the change needed to help clients/organizations understand what it was they were going to get with these objectively driven programs with results, hence why the business day was created. Everything we’ve done - right or wrong - everything we’ve spent money on to move forward with equine assisted learning, everything we did so that we had a thriving business, we have put into our business day, so that every single certified facilitator that comes through our doors has a chance to thrive and make a nice living at their dream career! PLUS, we added the 6 month online training review to this course, because how in the heck do you become an expert in just 5 days unless you have to keep paying to come back to a company for more training. PLUS, we added Free Training for the lifetime of your career as we believe we are NOT successful at our job, unless our Certified Facilitators are successful at theirs.

Kari believes to this day that she had to go through everything to be able to help you! To help you not do what she did but all the right things to move your business right out of the gate instead of having to struggle along as so many people would say, 'that's my sign' to not do this business. She believes that when we share everything and help our certified facilitators daily (literally), we are then achieving a world-wide team of facilitators helping people to change their lives with the power of these magnificent horses. PLUS with everything you receive in the business package you DO NOT have to spend the money that it takes to move your business forward as it's all designed and ready for you.

We have been International since 2015 and can bring this course to any place in the world! We can also help others to get their insurance and set up their business just like ours. We felt, why make people go through all the hardships when we can just give them everything to become successful and not have to recreate the wheel. Equine Connection truly wants to build up their facilitators to be successful. Because we aren’t successful until you are.

Horse course, horse school, horse program, horse work, horse learning…. whatever you want to call it; it is achieving a dream career for you and the horses you work with. It’s an opportunity to bring your passion and your career together to live a life of purposeful fulfillment.

"This is the most incredible Equine Certification I have ever taken because it is backed by research, objective based, and the follow up support each facilitator receives is ongoing, genuine, and invaluable." ~Heather Russell

"This is the most absolutely hugely incredible Equine Assisted Learning Certification I've ever taken because of the research backing it, objectively driven, with guaranteed results, and mostly the on-going education & support." ~Rachael Dent Flynn